The FBI Has “Grave Concerns”? So Do I

Most of us are eagerly awaiting the release of the House Intelligence Committee’s memo on abuse of the FBI by the Obama administration. It should happen in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, the Bureau is worried, as always, about its public image. The Associated Press headlines: “FBI clashes with Trump, has ‘grave concerns’ on Russia memo.” I’m so old, I can remember when liberals were in favor of revealing corruption in institutions like the FBI. Those days, of course, are long gone.

In a remarkably public clash of wills with the White House, the FBI declared Wednesday it has “grave concerns” about the accuracy of a classified memo on the Russia election investigation that President Donald Trump wants released.

Yeah, well, you know what? I have grave concerns about the politicization of the Department of Justice and the FBI under the Obama administration, which I have been writing about since 2010.

“As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” the FBI said.

If there are “material omissions of fact,” the Democrats’ responsive memo no doubt will reveal them. Good: let’s lay the cards on the table. The relevant fact here is that the FBI is no longer claiming that there is a national security problem with releasing the memo, only that it will put the FBI in a bad light.

Trey Gowdy, soon to depart the House, gets the last word:

The Justice Department had said in a letter last week that it would be “extraordinarily reckless” to release the memo without first giving the FBI and the department the chance to review it.

After those complaints, Wray reviewed the memo over the weekend. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., who was with him when he reviewed the memo, said the FBI director did not raise any national security concerns. Gowdy said the memo doesn’t reveal any intelligence methods but does reveal “one source.”

Heh. Christopher Steele, I presume. It’s time for some transparency. Let’s get to the bottom of the FBI’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Bureau needs, at a minimum, to be reformed via a thorough housecleaning of senior bureaucrats.